Arch Linux

z_Zelman

Member

Registered: 2013-01-23

Posts: 7

How to clone your system to push onto another hard drive?

I spent a lot of time setting up my Arch Linux on my desktop and I don't want that to go to waste when I start using my new, bigger hard drive. How do I clone my system so that I can install it on my new hard drive? I would like the clone to be on a DVD, but no worries if it is not.

graysky

Wiki Maintainer

From: :wq

Registered: 2008-12-01

Posts: 10,597

Website

Re: How to clone your system to push onto another hard drive?

Format and mount the new disk and simply rysnc over the partitions.  Chroot into the new hdd and get your bootloader installed on its boot sector.  Remember to adjust your /etc/fstab if using uuids.  That should be it.  I do this all the time.  Some wiki links that will help you:

EDIT: I removed some of the links I originally included.  Really, this is all you need:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Be … rage_drive

Last edited by graysky (2013-01-26 15:04:51)

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Alber

Member

From: Spain - España

Registered: 2011-11-11

Posts: 227

Re: How to clone your system to push onto another hard drive?

I don't know what links graysky has deleted.
I think this link is interesting:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Rs … tem_backup

Last edited by Alber (2013-01-26 17:15:04)

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blackst0rm

Member

Registered: 2012-09-11

Posts: 9

Re: How to clone your system to push onto another hard drive?

Just did something like that a few days ago when I was moving to a SSD. Here is how I did it:

I mounted the SSD and created the partitions like the same as on the HDD. In my case it has been / and /boot since I planned to leave /home on HDD.
In the next step I copied over the whole filesystem to the newly created. To get grub working after reboot I backed up the boot sector - partition table of the HDD with the command:
sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=grub-backup bs =446 count=1
And wrote it to the SSD with the command:
sudo dd if=grub-backup of=/dev/sdb count=1
You have to replace the device letters with your own.
To get the system booting I had to modify the /etc/fstab file and the /boot/grub/menu.lst.
In /etc/fstab I had to replace the UUID's of the old partitions with new ones.
In /boot/grub/menu.lst I had to replace the UUID of the root partition with the UUID of the newly created partition.

Then I rebooted the System swapped the boot order in BIOS setup.
Just to be sure I started the system with the rescue target and recreated the kernel image by issuing the command:
mkinitcpio -p linux

After a reboot I got my System moved and starting at lightning speed

I hope this will help you